


Three Times Aziraphale and Crowley Met the Doctor

by bastet_in_april



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, Theatre, Time Travel Shenanigans, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastet_in_april/pseuds/bastet_in_april
Summary: When you live a long time, you're bound to meet interesting (and strange) people.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 147
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	Three Times Aziraphale and Crowley Met the Doctor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witching](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/gifts).



Three Times Aziraphale and Crowley Met the Doctor

By bastet_in_april

A gift fic for nachashim/witching, as part of the GO Holiday Swap

***

The First Doctor:

64 AD, Rome

After they met in Rome, and had oysters and a great many jars of expensive wine, Crowley and Aziraphale had continued to meet by chance on a regular basis. It was inevitable, Aziraphale supposed, when two preternatural beings settled in the same city for an extended period of time. 

Crowley would be lurking in doorways of taverns or baths, tempting senators to corruption and greed with a carefully placed whisper in their ears, or an enticing bribe slipped into their palms. Aziraphale, meanwhile, would be one street over, visiting blessings upon a mutual-aid society intended to ensure that Roman people who were not granted citizenship still had the resources to be healthy and safe. When they finished their respective work, and met one another in the marketplace--well, that was simply happenstance, and not Aziraphale’s having become comfortably familiar with Crowley’s routines and typical routes through the city, if Heaven should ask. And if they retired to a thermopolium to eat squares of roasted flat-bread with deliciously melted cheese and caramel-colored onion, while drinking jars of unmixed wine and gossiping about the latest idiotic thing that Emperor Nero had done, or reciting witty bits of poetry they’d heard? Well, no one in Heaven or Hell had to know. Aziraphale didn’t much see the point of fighting Crowley, and never had. Oh, he’d do his best to thwart the demon when they were at cross-purposes, but that was work. No reason to be impolite when they were “off the clock,” as it were.

And if they started inviting one another to plays, or to see new pieces of art that were being constructed, or to hear musicians play for the Emperor’s court? Nobody had to know about that, either.

Which was how they came to be at Nero’s Imperial Palace on a hot July evening. Crowley had invited Aziraphale there, having heard that a famous lyre-player, Maximus Pettulian, would be performing that night, at the Caesar Nero’s behest. Nero was having a banquet in the man’s honor, taken with the idea of recognizing a fellow “artist.” The combination of food and music was bound to be a winning one, Aziraphale felt, and if the human company of nobles and politicians was boring and preoccupied with sniping at each other, at least Crowley would be there to keep the evening enjoyable.

“Apparently, there was an assassination attempt on the Caesar’s life before the banquet started,” Crowley informed him, picking at a dish of olives without much interest, before sliding them casually to Aziraphale’s elbow. The angel smiled gratefully, popping a round purple fruit onto his tongue, and savoring its salty flesh. “Someone poisoned Nero’s goblet, and the musician heard about it somehow, and tipped Nero off. Which is a bit weird, honestly, because, well…” Crowley leaned in a bit, his wine-sweet breath tickling the shell of Aziraphale’s ear. “You know I’ve got an ear out for any palace intrigue; I like to know what’s happening, so that I can stir the pot, if needed, and take credit Downstairs. Thing is, I heard about this Maximus Pettulion. The word is, he’s actually an assassin, here to kill Caesar Nero.” Crowley snorted in disgust. “What kind of assassin rescues their target from a poisoning?”

“Maybe he wants to do the job himself?” Aziraphale speculated, after depositing the olive pit neatly into his palm with his tongue, and then setting it onto his plate. “Professional pride?” He frowned. “I do hope you haven’t brought me to watch a murder, Crowley.”

The demon was quick to reassure him. “You know I don’t go in for that sort of thing, angel. Don’t like seeing people dying.” He grimaced, downing the last of his wine, as he thought about the last death they’d both been witness to. “Anyway,” the demon shook himself out of the recollection, “it won’t happen tonight. Not at a banquet, with all these people here, and the guards just out in the hallway. We’re just here to listen to some music, and have a nice dinner.”

The angel softened, “Oh, my dear, that sounds--”

“Silence, silence!” Caesar Nero stood from his ornate chair, his unctuous voice cutting sharply through the chatter in the room. “Now that we have feasted, we shall have a further feast--of music! I give you, the great Corinthian lyre-player, Maximus Pettulian!” Caesar gestured towards one of the diners, a short, grandfatherly man with his white hair worn slightly long. The man stood up obligingly, and the young woman sitting next to him looked torn between bemusement and nerves, as she handed him the lyre she had been carrying for him. The musician, on the other hand, looked pleased as punch, as he took up position in the center of the room, thanking the guests for their polite applause. 

“With Caesar's permission, I would like to play my new composition in honor of this occasion.” Maximus looked exceedingly proud of himself, as he continued in a conspiratorial aside to Nero, “The music is so soft, so delicate, that only those with perceptive hearing will be able to distinguish its melodious charm.” Nero nodded seriously, showing his enthusiastic appreciation that the lyre-player had chosen something only suitable for a true, discerning artist (which Nero fancied himself to be).

Maximus took up his tortoise-shell lyre, gleefully. Aziraphale heard him fail to suppress a delighted chuckle as he began to play. The angel leaned forward expectantly, along with the other guests. 

There was a long, awkward silence.

Maximus diligently plucked the air above his lyre’s taught strings, pausing expectantly to cue Nero to savor some part of his “composition.” 

The Emperor’s fingers trailed through the air as if following nonexistent notes. He looked like an idiot.

Party guests began to elbow each other, trying to pretend their grins were out of appreciation for the “music,” rather than restrained laughter. Crowley had to smother a snort with the palm of his hand. The more aristocratic the guests at the banquet were, the more likely they seemed to be to follow Nero’s lead and indicate that, no, really, they could definitely hear the delicate melody, and it was very beautiful, really. If Caesar jumped off of a bridge, it was apparently the fashionable thing to do. 

Aziraphale downed the rest of his wine, staring. The musician continued, blithely, to pretend to play the lyre.

One of the palace staff abruptly sneezed, and the party-goers took that as their cue to break into sporadic applause, the musician having been startled out of pretending to pluck the air with his fingertips. Maximus frowned, shook his head at the crowd, decisively plucked the air a few more times, and then finished with a flourish and a bow towards his audience, who exclaimed and applauded more decisively this time, looking relieved for the cue.

“Bravo!” Crowley cheered, his voice choked thick with laughter. “Bravo!”

Aziraphale was still staring in disbelief. 

As the party guests settled back in to the banquet, Aziraphale turned to Crowley. “Well, my dear, I’m sure it’s lovely, and a profound statement about the artificiality of art and beauty, and all of that, but I’m just not convinced about this. When one goes to a concert, one rather expects to hear music.” He frowned in distaste. “This style of music seems… far too modern for me.”

Crowley grinned at him. “Ah, well. At least the food’s good?”

***

Later, as they were leaving the banquet hall, both of them a bit tipsy but not bothered enough to sober up, they passed the musician, Maximus Pettulian, and the girl he’d been sitting with at the banquet. She looked twice as bemused as before, but all her concern had dissolved into impish humor.

“Oh, Doctor, well done!” She was saying, as she and the short, white-haired old man leaned together conspiratorially, both of them dissolved in fits of giggles.

“It’s the old fairy story, my dear Vicki, _The Emperor’s New Clothes!_ ” The musician seemed positively delighted with his own performance, but his literary reference wasn’t one Aziraphale was familiar with (and that was very uncommon indeed). “I gave the idea to Hans Andersen, you know…” 

***

The Fourth Doctor:

1505 AD, Florence

Crowley liked Florence. It was a remarkably comfortable place to be a demon. He simply had to turn up there, and let humans be humans. Political scheming, scandal, blasphemy, hedonism--Florence at the turn of the century had it all. Plus, it was an exciting, comfortable place to laze about, while taking the credit for all that human pettiness and greed. Art was blossoming, humans were beginning to examine the world around them in pursuit of greater understanding, the depths and heights of human nature were being explored in writing and philosophy. Humanity was changing so fast now, and Crowley delighted in the breakneck speed of it, the exhilaration of being here, where it was all happening, as it unfolded around him.

Crowley enjoyed the artists, in particular. They had such imagination, and saw the world in ways he never could, however imaginative he might be by demonic standards. Leonardo da Vinci was a favorite artist--a favorite human. He had a way of seeking out the workings of a thing, whether it was the physics of a bird in flight, or the anatomy of the human spine, or the compassion of a mother for her child, that Crowley delighted in. Leonardo was forever asking questions of the universe.

The man’s studio, however, was an absolute mess.

Crowley had brought a bottle of wine with him, intending to celebrate the artist’s latest commissioned work, a portrait of a prominent merchant’s wife, but he couldn’t find a clear bit of table to set the bottle and glasses on. Finally, he gave in and set about clearing the top of the desk that the artist used to prepare his canvases and wooden boards for painting. Crowley shuffled away a meticulous sketch for the rotor of a flying machine, mouth twisting with amusement. He had warned Leonardo that he would only find frustration in trying to pitch his ideas for human flight to potential patrons. Still, the man was fascinated with the notion that flight could be achievable, despite humanity not having been granted wings. You had to admire the ambition, Crowley supposed. He picked up a stack of boards that were primed and ready for painting.

THIS IS A FAKE 

Crowley stared in bewilderment at the scrawled words on the board in his hand, written in an ink he hadn’t seen in use before. Each of the five additional boards below that first one had the same words scrawled in the same messy block capitals. It certainly wasn’t Leonardo’s handwriting. “What…?” the demon muttered to the empty, slightly dusty air of the studio. 

The door burst open, letting in the sound of birdsong, as well as a man whose arms were full of painting supplies. His sharp gaze caught on Crowley’s familiar figure, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners in pleasure at seeing a familiar guest. “Antonio!” he greeted. “I am relieved to see you well! With the strife in Milan, I was not sure we’d meet again.”

“Oh, you know me. Got out of town while the getting was good. Thought I’d stop in Florence for a bit, see how it’s changed since 1478, have a bit of fun. Always good for a party, Florence. Besides, I knew I’d have at least one friend in town.” He grinned, his thoughts turning to another friend than the one in the room with him, a figure his mind's-eye conjured in soft velvets and brocades, lenses perched on his nose, as he squinted at a dubious engraving in a biblical text. “Two, if I’m lucky, and the other’s not too busy correcting translations of Horace and Virgil to call on me while I’m in the area.” 

Leonardo hummed knowingly, as he dumped his kit of brushes onto the seat of a chair, and carefully propped his new landscape painting against a wall to dry. “Would this be the same friend you keep saying is more... interesting--and by interesting, I suspect you also mean beautiful--than any of the angels in the great paintings?”

“What, no, I never--I mean--he’s--” Crowley’s eyes roved desperately about the studio in search of any escape from actually addressing the fact that his affections for Aziraphale were apparently obvious to a short-lived--if razor-sharp and brilliantly perceptive--human, who had no idea of the true nature of the angel and the demon, and their long history together. “So, what’s this, then?” Crowley thrust the board with the block capitals into the artist’s face urgently. “Modern art?”

Leonardo laughed, and allowed Crowley to ungracefully change the subject. “No, no. An old friend visited, and left the boards like that.” He shook his head, and laughed. “I’ve learned not to ask, when it comes to the Doctor. I’m only sorry to have missed him, and only received his note.”

Crowley looked at the defaced pieces of board. “Pretty cryptic note.”

Leonardo presented him with a piece of parchment from a drawer, looking intent on seeing his reaction. “No. This note. Go on, you may as well read it. Curiosity is as much your vice as mine.”

The parchment had clearly come from Leonardo’s desk, as Crowley could see a small sketch of the anatomy of a lark’s wing in the corner of the page.

_Dear Leo,_

__

__

Sorry to have missed you. Hope you’re well. Sorry about the mess on the panels. Just paint over, there’s a good chap. See you earlier.

Love,

_The Doctor_

“See you earlier…?”

Leonardo shook his head, taking the note from Crowley. “The Doctor is an even stranger person than you, my friend.” He ignored Crowley’s indignant snort, continuing, “He is always saying things like that, as if he were somehow living his life out of order, rather than from one day to the next, like the rest of us.” Leonardo paused in thought, absently tracing the words on the wood panel at the top of the pile, as he set the Doctor’s letter beside them. “Well, perhaps he does,” he said quietly. “I have seen him at many points in my life, and his face never ages a day. As if he had stepped out of one day, and into the next meeting, without a pause for the years between.” The artist looked up at Crowley sharply, “Rather like the way you scarcely seem to have aged a day from the one in which we first met.”

Crowley frowned. The Doctor wasn’t an alias Aziraphale had ever used, and the handwriting was wrong for the angel, anyway, but there really weren’t many other immortal beings wandering around the earth. Surely, if there were another field agent from Heaven or Hell settling down in Italy, he’d have heard about it?

“What’s he like, this Doctor? What’s his name? Where is he from?”

“No one knows. I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from him about where he came from. The last time I asked, he said something about being a willing exile, preferring to live as a traveler who journeys through the fourth dimension, whatever he may have meant by that. The time before that, he claimed to have come from a constellation called Kasterborous.” Leonardo shook his head, echoing Crowley’s disbelief. “As to his name, he just says that he is called the Doctor.”

This certainly didn’t sound like any demon or angel that Crowley had ever heard of.

“He’s very tall, with curly brown hair, and a toothy grin that makes his eyes go a bit wide at the edges. He looks a bit mad, in truth. His clothes are in a fashion I have never seen elsewhere. He wears a long brown coat, and a woollen scarf of many colors that is so long that he may loop it around his neck many times and it still trails along the ground as he walks.”

Okay, the fashion choices sounded as ill-advised as some of the things Crowley had seen demons attempt to wear for earthside visits. “Why’d he deface the wooden boards you’d prepared for painting?” Property damage would be in line with a demon’s modus operandi, if rather petty in scale. Leaving a note to apologize for it, however, was distinctly un-demonic.

“Oh, who knows? He’s a very odd person, as I have said. He’s right, anyway; I can just paint over these, and no one will be the wiser that there is anything underneath the paint. It is not as though there is a machine to allow one to see what is under a layer of paint! These boards are still ready for me to begin my work on Captain Tancredi’s commissions.”

“Well done, Leo! Already have more work lined up then?”

“Yes. I can’t claim to be looking forward to it, though. Painting the same image multiple times hardly stimulates one’s artistic curiosity.”

“He wants you to paint copies of the same picture for him? Why?”

Leonardo sighed. “Who knows why Captain Tancredi does anything. If the Doctor seems mad, Captain Tancredi certainly is. I’ve often witnessed him speak with the air, as if holding conversations with some entity that isn’t there. The fits upset him, and drive him into a foul temper. And he is forever referring to himself as ‘we,’ rather than ‘I’. But it isn’t my place to question the man; it would be a poor choice for my continued health if I did. The Captain and his thugs are the primary power in the area. He is enormously wealthy, and employs a number of mercenaries to enforce his wishes. If what he wishes is six copies of my portrait of La Gioconda? Well, that’s an odd choice, but he is paying me handsomely for the work.”

Crowley looked to the corner of the studio where Leonardo’s finished commission of La Gioconda rested on an easel, waiting to be delivered to the merchant who had commissioned it. “He wants six copies of a painting of another man’s wife? The woman with no eyebrows?”

Leonardo shrugged. “There’s no accounting for taste. At least, I don’t have to try to get her to sit still to be painted again; I can just copy my own work. Such a fidget, that woman, though charming… But I see you have brought wine! Sit down, Antonio, catch me up on what has happened since I last saw you in Milan.”

***

1979 AD, Paris

Things were only just beginning to become less strained between Aziraphale and Crowley. After the angel had somberly given Crowley the thermos of holy water, despite his reservations, Aziraphale had mostly continued to stay away from Crowley for the following couple of years. Crowley wanted desperately to insert himself back into Aziraphale’s life now that they had finally mended bridges, but he was also cautious after the angel’s admission that Crowley was moving too quickly for him. He wanted Aziraphale to feel comfortable with him again, and that meant waiting, rather than rushing to invade the sanctum of the bookshop.

Instead, Crowley would arrange to casually bump into Aziraphale in public, keeping up the pretense that it was a coincidence, rather than a choice, even though they both knew better. It was a bit like when they’d both been in Rome. Eventually, they’d escalated to migrating to long lunches at cafes, or strolls through the park, rather than just brief conversations, upon meeting. Now, they were comfortable enough that Crowley was able to invite Aziraphale out to dinner, or to the theatre, without the pretense of a chance meeting, as long as they spent the first few minutes of the outing discussing business. 

This month, work had brought them both to Paris, and Crowley was hardly going to miss any opportunities to spend time with the angel in this particular city. 

The Denise Rene Gallery was holding an opening night gala for an exhibit featuring several avant-garde artists. It would be opulent, ostentatious, snooty, and replete with champagne. An excellent opportunity for Crowley to get some temptation done quickly and easily, while Aziraphale could make sure that the bulk of the profits from the gala went to support art programs in schools for underprivileged youth, or similar philanthropic endeavors, fulfilling his own quotient of blessings. Plus, there would be free alcohol.

The art was all wretched, of course. It was all statements on something or other about the downfall of society, and the meaninglessness commercialism of art. Aesthetic beauty never seemed to come into it. Still, some of it managed to be whimsical, if nothing else. And Crowley hadn’t come here for paintings or sculpture.

Aziraphale was the most radiant thing in the gallery, his nose crinkled up dubiously as he examined a pile of tin cans assembled into a pyramid. The angel had shed the tartan cravat in favor of a bow tie, and his velvet waistcoat looked touchably worn and plush. The gallery lighting caught the pale cloud of his hair, illuminating it with a diffuse glow.

Crowley plucked a pair of delicate champagne flutes from a tray carried by a passing member of the waitstaff. “Not your style, angel?” he asked, as he nudged the other with his elbow, offering one of the glasses.

“Oh, thank you, Crowley.” Aziraphale smiled gratefully at him, and Crowley’s insides felt fizzier than the champagne could account for. “No, I’m not much for the post-modern, I think.”

“Nor me,” Crowley admitted. “It is a laugh sometimes, though. Look at that one.” 

Aziraphale turned to see that Crowley was pointed at a slightly worn-looking blue police telephone box in one corner of the room. “Oh, goodness, it’s been a little while since I’ve seen one of those! They’ve rather begun to fall out of use. But how did one end up here in Paris?”

“Suppose that’s the bit that makes it art,” Crowley shrugged, “an ordinary object out of context, and all that?”

The pair drifted closer to the blue box. It was positioned oddly, in a nook, in front of a sofa meant for gallery visitors, and next to a large potted bromeliad. Two other gallery patrons were standing in front of the phone box, assessing it with the dispassionately cool gazes of cutting-edge art critics who thought they were far too hip for this event. Crowley was a bit surprised to find any art critic talking about the pieces here, rather than the recent theft and recovery of the Mona Lisa, which was splashed all over the news.

“To me,” the man in the suit remarked to the woman at his side, “one of the most curious things about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism.”

_“Afunctionalism,_ ” Crowley mouthed mockingly to Aziraphale from behind the pair. “Oh, stop, you beast,” the angel whispered fondly.

The woman in a purple satin turban was nodding thoughtfully. “Yes, I see what you mean. Divorced from its function and seen purely as a piece of art, its structure of line and color is curiously counterpointed by the redundant vestiges of its function.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. Aziraphale grimaced in reluctant agreement, but was distracted by a waiter proffering a tray of canapes. “Ooh, smoked salmon!”

“And since it has no call to be here,” the man in the suit continued, his voice actually taking on a bit of excitement, if only at his own cleverness, “the art lies in the fact that it is here.”

Crowley was momentarily distracted by the expression of bliss on Aziraphale’s face as he licked a last trace of herbed cream cheese off of his finger. Suddenly he was jostled as a tall figure in a long overcoat, trailing a truly improbable scarf rushed past him. Crowley startled. There was something familiar about that absurdly long striped scarf, but the demon was certain he’d never actually clapped eyes on an article of clothing like it. The tall, curly-haired man fumbled a key out of the overcoat’s pocket, rushing to unlock the door of the phone box and hurry inside. 

A young blonde woman in a schoolgirl uniform and straw hat followed after, as did a man in a rumpled tan trenchcoat who looked like he was trying (and mostly failing) to shape himself into the stereotype of a dime novel hard-boiled detective. They all piled quickly into the blue phone box, shutting the door firmly behind them.

Aziraphale, Crowley, and the two art critics stared.

A howling, wheezing, unearthly noise filled the air, and the light at the top of the police box flashed. It shimmered, flickering in and out of a state of transparency, the sofa and bromeliad visible behind it in brief glimpses, until, suddenly, the police box was gone, as if it had never been there at all.

“Exquisite,” the critic in the turban murmured blissfully. “Absolutely exquisite.”

Crowley look at the bromeliad, then at Aziraphale, and then at his champagne glass.

“Right,” he said. “I’m sobering up.”

***

The Tenth Doctor:

1599 AD, London

Aziraphale liked England. An angel couldn’t be a citizen of a particular place, nor even of the world entire, belonging instead to the dominion of God, but he felt more at home in this damp little island country than anywhere else. He liked shutting himself indoors, away from the rain, and settling in to the coziness of reading a book, with a warm drink at his elbow. He liked the current fashion for silk, brocade, heeled boots, and starched collars. He did not like the noise and stink of the city, but he enjoyed the bustle of it. Aziraphale often felt apart from humanity, short-lived as they were, but he enjoyed their company, delighting in seeing their compassion, their creativity, and their small, everyday kindnesses. He enjoyed the bookshops, libraries, and places of learning. Most of all, he enjoyed going to the theatre with Crowley. Shakespeare had been a revelation.

Neither the angel nor demon were entirely settled into the city as full-time residents. Their work still sent them abroad, but the Arrangement allowed them to be more settled than they might otherwise have been, with one of them saved the trip, while the other performed both the temptation and blessing in whatever place they had been called to visit. When they were both within London, enjoying a brief reprieve from instructions, they tended to meet to enjoy their free time together. Oh, it was also to keep up with any news the other might have received about incoming orders, or so Aziraphale told himself, but it was a pleasure. The newly-opened Globe Theater had quickly become their favorite destination.

It was an impressive wooden building on Maiden Lane, appearing round in its outward shape, like the globe for which it was named, but actually a polygon with fourteen sides. Inside the tetradecagon, it could house a large crowd of spectators on the ground around the raised stage, and had private boxes with a clear view over the crowd, for those who could afford them. Aziraphale had initially been somewhat dismayed by the Globe’s construction, as it had been built from the disassembled timbers of another theatre he’d been somewhat fond of. Crowley had cheered him up with the promise of a pleasant dinner before the first show, and the angel had lost himself in the performance of Julius Caesar. Even Crowley moaning about how wrong they’d gotten Brutus couldn’t distract Aziraphale from his reverie. Crowley had looked very pleased with himself afterwards, as they retired to the inn where Aziraphale was staying in order to discuss the performance over wine. 

They’d both been long acquainted with Shakespeare and his work, but this new theater seemed a more ideal place to stage the man’s plays than anywhere they had seen it performed before. The demon had lost no time in suggesting that they catch another show by the playwright at the next possible opportunity, when they were both in town. 

“I just hope he snaps out of this streak of writing dour tragedies where all the characters wind up dead, or as good as,” Crowley told Aziraphale. “The reality of the world’s wretched enough, what with wars, and plague, and persecution, and urban sprawl. Nobody needs to watch teenagers killing themselves over love on stage, in what’s meant to be entertainment.” He frowned down at his glass of wine, melancholically. 

Aziraphale fidgeted with his shirt cuffs nervously, looking away. That play had struck rather too close to the bone. “I suppose you’re right. Oh, I do wish they’d both escaped into exile together at the end, instead. It wouldn’t have been so dreadfully sad if they’d just been alive, and together, regardless of their circumstances.” He sighed, “At least their families were moved by the tragedy to end their war with one another.”

Crowley raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you think so? I think they’d have found something else to begin fighting about soon enough; it wouldn’t have stuck for long. Can’t undo centuries of hatred that easily, angel.”

“Maybe, with love, you can,” Aziraphale said, but he could hear despair in his own voice. He suspected the Archangels would agree with Crowley on this matter.

“Hey, hey,” Crowley looked at him with concern through the smoked glass of his lenses, “enough of this gloomy stuff. We’re going to see a comedy next, alright. No more tragedies. Tell you what, you remember that Christmas play that Will put on for Good Queen Bess’ court in 1597? _Love’s Labour’s Lost_?”

Aziraphale’s mouth quirked into a faint smile. “Who could forget a play that contains the word ‘honorificabilitudinitatibus’?”

“Exactly.” Crowley shuddered. “But the puns, and the wordplay jokes, those were clever. I heard a rumor Shakespeare’s been writing a sequel, _Love’s Labours Won_. Supposed to premiere soon. What do you think? Might be worth seeing. Want to come see another play with me? A comedy, this time?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Oh, my dear, I can think of no way I’d rather spend my evening.”

***

The theater is packed full, but a quick miracle secures Crowley the usual private box. They’d bought a flask of spiced wine and an orange from a vendor, and Crowley filled a pair of miracled-up goblets as the angel settled in to look about the stage excitedly. “Oh, I think they’ve re-used some of the set-pieces from _Love’s Labours Lost_. How nice.”

“Mm. Can hope they’ve upgraded the actors, this time around,” Crowley muttered.

“Oh, nonsense. I’m sure they were doing their best.” Aziraphale took the proffered wine happily. “Thank you, my dear boy.”

The murmur of the crowd died down as the cast took the stage, and the play began. Crowley settled back into his seat, and watched Aziraphale watch the play.

Just as the play was stumbling towards its finale, Shakespeare himself burst onto the stage, looking frantic. “Stop the play!”

The crowd burst into shocked murmurs, and the actors looked at each other in disbelief. Crowley leaned forward with interest. 

“I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” Shakespeare continued, “but this performance must end immediately.” The actor playing the lead looked extremely put out. He’d probably been supposed to have a soliloquy next, Crowley thought. “I’m sorry. You’ll get a refund, but this play must not be performed.” 

Aziraphale made a discontented noise next to him.

Abruptly Shakespeare toppled off his feet, as though an invisible rug had been yanked out from under him. Crowley stared in shock, and then his head whipped around to regard the angel. Had Aziraphale…?

The crowd roared with laughter, as the actors struggled to wrestle the prone playwright off the stage. One of them awkwardly addressed the crowd, improvising as best he could, “You must forgive our irksome Will. He’s been on the beer, and feeling ill.” He nervously jigged back to his correct place on the stage, so that the play could resume. The crowd cheered.

Crowley laughed in delighted disbelief. He selected a delicate segment of peeled orange, presenting it gallantly to his companion, who was looking at him disapprovingly. “Really, my dear…”

“You always manage to surprise me,” Crowley murmured to the angel, who looked slightly confused. Playing the innocent, the delightful bastard, as if Crowley hadn’t just seen him knock Shakespeare over with a miracle, just so that he could see the end of the play!

“Me? I thought you--” But the play had resumed, and Aziraphale quieted, as the lead finally got his soliloquy. The script seemed to have jumped the rails entirely at some point, descending into utter gibberish.

“Betwixt Dravidian shores, and linear 5930167.02, and strikes the fulsome grove of Rexel Four,” the actor intoned, clearly having no better idea of what any of this nonsense he was spouting meant than his audience did. “Co-radiating crystal, activate!”

Abruptly, a chill wind rushed through the theatre. The sky was filled with dark, chattering shapes, that whirled through the air and gnashed their teeth, cackling madly. The crowd began to panic, struggling for the exits, but they were too densely packed together to be able to escape quickly.

“Oh, now, really!” Aziraphale snapped, “This is too much, Crowley! That quick demonic miracle to let the play continue was a lovely favor, but if that crowd stampedes, someone could be hurt!”

“Me?!” Crowley asked incredulously. “I’m not doing this! I thought it was _you_ that knocked Will over!”

Aziraphale looked deeply offended by the suggestion. “Me! I’m an angel!”

“Yes. And?”

“Well-- Well--” Aziraphale looked stumped for a defense, perhaps realizing that knocking someone over to prevent the interruption of a play he was enjoying was exactly the sort of thing he might have done, under other circumstances. “I didn’t! And anyway, does _that_ look like the sort of thing an angel would do?”

Crowley stared at the cloud of shrieking, cackling, witch-like spectres, and had to concede that it did not. 

Lightning flashed, and ashy clouds billowed unnaturally. The crowds began to beat at the Globe’s heavy wooden doors, which had locked seemingly of their own accord, barring any escape from the confines of the theatre. Red light poured over the crowd, illuminating terrified faces ominously. “We’ve got to do something to stop this. If neither of us is causing it, what is?”

Before Aziraphale could respond, Shakespeare was pulled back onto the stage by a pair of figures who weren’t part of the company of actors, a tall man with spiky brown hair, wearing a long camel-brown coat, and a dark-skinned woman wearing a jacket made of red leather, and blue trousers, with her hair pulled up. The man seemed to be giving Shakespeare some kind of pep talk. Even as he took center stage, to face the howling inferno of shades, Shakespeare didn’t look convinced by it. “But these Carrionite phrases, they need such precision,” he protested.

“Trust yourself,” the man in the long coat told him. “When you’re locked away in your room, the words just come, don’t they, like magic.” He looked almost wistful, and sounded as if he believed in Shakespeare with every ounce of his being. It was the sort of look that made you strive not to disappoint the person directing it towards you, Crowley thought. “Words of the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm. Words that last forever. That’s what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise.”

“Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches’ plot,” Shakespeare commanded the witches’ shapes whirling through the air. “You thieve my brains, consider me your toy.” The playwright shot a quick grateful glance at the spiky-haired figure beside him, continuing, “My doting Doctor tells me I am not! Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show, between the points--” He paused, and looked to the strangers for assistance.

“761390!” The man helpfully provided.

“--761390! Banished like a tinker’s cuss, I say to thee--” Shakespeare faltered, scrambling for words. The strangers, and the few actors who hadn’t fled the stage looked alarmed, staring helplessly at one another.

“Expelliarmus!” the woman in the red leather jacket burst out, nonsensically.

“Expelliarmus!” Shakespeare echoed. The shrieking tempest grew momentarily louder, until the crones were pulled abruptly into the sky in a fierce storm of wind and torn paper.

Aziraphale made a pained noise next to Crowley, as he watched the only copy of _Love’s Labours Won_ get pulled through a portal in the darkened sky, along with the menacing creatures. There was a flash of light, and then calm descended over the theatre again. The crowd murmured in shocked appreciation of the spectacle.

“Wait, was that part of the play?” Crowley asked in disbelief. 

“They seem to think so,” Aziraphale replied, “but no, I don’t imagine it was. Look at William’s face.”

The man looked shaken, as if he’d just fought a battle against an outsized opponent, and somehow won. He stared in disbelief for a moment, as the crowd began to applaud ecstatically, before recovering his aplomb, bowing and blowing kisses at the spectators.

“Honestly, though, you shouldn’t pretend,” Aziraphale smiled sweetly. “I don’t know why you felt the need for such an elaborate miracle, but it was quite a spectacular end to the play.”

Crowley protested. “I told you, I didn’t cause--”

“No, not the spectres, my dear, I believe you about that. I meant how you stopped them.”

“But I didn’t stop them,” Crowley stated, confused. “That was Shakespeare, and that pair who stormed the stage with him.”

“Yes, exactly. I’m not sure why you felt the need to miracle up a couple of invented heroes to encourage Shakespeare to the right speech to banish those witches, but I could hardly miss that it was your work.” The angel looked fondly exasperated. “You made one of them look just like you.”

“What?! I did not!” Crowley sputtered, protesting his innocence. “ _He did not!_ Angel, that man looked nothing like me!”

Aziraphale just laughed.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s notes: 
> 
> Sorry this is late, witching! Even though I stuck to three Doctors, it still expanded beyond what I expected. Thank you for coming up with such excellent prompts!
> 
> ***
> 
> Some of the dialogue is pulled directly from the Doctor Who stories in question (The Romans, City of Death, and The Shakespeare Code), and is not mine.
> 
> Yes, the First Doctor. I love him, but recognize that I’m an oddity. I wanted to do The Romans, because it's silly, so I did it anyway.
> 
> Also, the art critic in the suit is played by John Cleese. I feel that it is important that you know about this excellent cameo. 
> 
> I had originally made plans to have all Thirteen Doctors in this, but it was already getting much longer than intended. I may still write that expanded version, eventually. Would there be interest in that?


End file.
